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"Also on the tenth day of this seventh month there shall be a day of atonement: it shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall afflict your souls, and offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD. And ye shall do no work in that same day: for it is a day of atonement, to make an atonement for you before the LORD your God."
- Leviticus 23:27-28

Yom Kippur, also known as the Day of Atonement, is perhaps the most important holiday of the Jewish year. Yom Kippur is observed on the 10th of Tishri. This year Yom Kippur will begin at sunset on October 8th and end at nightfall on October 9th. Yom Kippur is considered the holiest and most solemn day of the year. It is a day of repentance and reconciliation. Yom Kippur is a Sabbath day. Therefore most Jews refrain from working and will attend synagogue services. It is also traditionally a day of fasting.

It was on this day - the only day - that the High Priest was able to enter the Holy of Holies, and then only after elaborate ceremonial washings, offerings, and associated rituals. This was also the day that two goats were selected, one for an offering and one as the "scapegoat." As many aspects of the feasts were prophetic, the scapegoat is also Messianic. The ceremonial acts that were to be carried out by the High Priest on Yom Kippur are described in Leviticus 16 (see also Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 23:27-31, 25:9; Numbers 29:7-11). Since the loss of the Temple in 70 A.D., the God-centered observances of the Torah have tragically been replaced with a man-centered, good works system of appeasement through prayer, charity, and penitence.

Yom Kippur traditionally ends with one long note of the Shofar, a musical instrument usually made from a ram's horn. The significance of the ram's horn is traditionally rooted in Genesis 22. Here God commands Abraham "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of." Abraham is called upon by God to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, as a test of his faith. After God halts the sacrifice at the last minute, Abraham spies a ram trapped by his horns in a nearby thicket and offers the animal instead as a sacrifice.

It is interesting to note that this is the first instance in which the word "love" appears in Scripture. God commands Abraham to sacrifice "thine only son Issac, whom thou lovest."  In this passage Issac is identified as Abraham's only son, but what about Ishmael? If you examine this passage of scripture in detail it becomes clear that Abraham was acting out prophecy. This strange event was a foreshadowing of Christ's death on the cross as a substitutionary offering for our sins. In fact, it may have even taken place at the very same spot where the "only begotten Son" of God was later crucified.

Woven throughout the Old Testament feasts is the foreshadowing of God’s plan for the redemption of mankind. Those of us who have placed our trust in Jesus Christ are able to enter behind the veil and stand in the Holy of Holies. We have forgiveness because of the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Please take a moment during this most holy of days to reflect on all of these things and to repent of any unconfessed sin in your life.

[Editor's Note: This is the second installment of a three part series on the fall feasts of Israel. Next week’s article will cover Succoth, otherwise known as the Feast of Tabernacles.]

In recent weeks the United States has intensified its military operations along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It seems the US is taking advantage of the window of opportunity created by Pervez Musharraf's resignation to target al-Qaeda and Taliban strongholds in Pakistan. Cross-border skirmishes between US troops and Islamic militants have been grabbing headlines, further complicating an already tense situation.

Pakistan's newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari has only been in office for a few weeks and already he is a target - both for political opponents and terrorist groups. He is the widower of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda in December of 2007. Zardari has inherited a nation in the midst of an economic and security crisis, and there has been speculation that he may not be able to hold the government together.

Pakistan is on the brink of bankruptcy. Pakistan's cash reserves have dropped to dangerously low levels. The rupee has lost more than 20 percent of its value since the beginning of the year and the rate of inflation is now 25 percent. The cost of food has risen dramatically and Pakistan is having trouble getting loans to pay for imports and to keep its economy afloat.

Meanwhile the security situation in Pakistan is rapidly deteriorating. On Monday at least 20 people were killed and about 40 others were injured in a suicide bombing targeting a government official. The attack comes two weeks after a deadly bombing at the Marriott Hotel in the capital city of Islamabad, in which 50 people were killed and another 250 were injured.

Terrorists Planning Attack

Experts say that al-Qaeda may be attempting to exploit the political chaos in Pakistan in order to acquire nuclear materials. There have also been reports that al-Qaeda may be planning another attack on US targets leading up to the elections.

CIA Director Michael Hayden recently stated that: "There is no greater national security threat facing the United States than al-Qaeda and its associates." Hayden also said that although Iran and North Korea both have the capability to produce nuclear weapons, al-Qaeda is the CIA's top nuclear concern because it is most likely to use them.

It is believed that al-Qaeda may be stepping up its efforts to develop materials for a "dirty bomb" - in which conventional explosives are fitted with radioactive material. The detonation of such a device in a city like London or New York would cause widespread panic and chaos, even though the area of contamination would be relatively small. According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, at least one plot has been uncovered involving Pakistani-based terrorists planning to use nuclear material against a major European target. However the details of their plans remain classified.

To learn more about this subject, click on the links below.

While Congressional leaders may condone scratching "In God We Trust" from the new Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., other Americans are working to make sure the Bible remains both honored and active in the United States.

The PC CVC

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Robert Byrd are overseeing the construction of a $621 million center to welcome visitors to the U.S. Capitol. Sometime near December, thousands of visitors will be able to stroll through the Capitol Visitor Center (CVC) and learn all about the Capitol. That is, they will learn "all" that is secular and politically correct unless plans get changed. Anything about God or religion appears to have been scrubbed from the architect's plans.

The CVC will include exhibits that represent parts of the actual Capitol, including those grand rooms where the members of Congress meet to banter over and decide on laws. Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia is concerned that the CVC is on its way to being a "shrine to political correctness." He notes:

"As many people know in looking at C-SPAN, behind where the Speaker stands, there is [sic] a number of columns, and above those columns there is the inscription 'In God We Trust.' In the mock-up that's meant to simulate that area in the new Visitor Center, they've taken 'In God We Trust' out, and they just have gold stars that go across it," says Forbes. "And then when they made a picture of the Speaker's podium, they cropped the part that said 'In God We Trust.'"

Concerned about things like this, 108 members of Congress wrote a letter to the architect, requesting that he turn over his plans for closer inspection. The architect forwarded the letter to Speaker Pelosi and Senator Byrd, but they have not responded. While some might believe that the visitor's center will seem more tolerant with the removal of the U.S. motto, this sort of censorship is actually intolerant – intolerant of America’s religious heritage. It is also quite simply inaccurate.

Bible Reading "Harmless Error" For Jury

On the other hand, down the street at the United States Supreme Court, the justices declined to hear the "jury Bible reading" case along with a number of other cases it rejected on Monday. During deliberations on a death penalty case, the jury foreman read from Romans 13:1-6 in an effort to sway the other jurors. After five hours, the jury decided that the defendant, Jimmie Lucero, deserved the death penalty for shooting his three neighbors to death in 2003. Lucero claimed his rights had been violated because the jury foreman used the Bible to make his case to the other jurors. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Lucero's case, therefore upholding a lower court decision that the jury foreman's reading the Bible did not get Lucero off the hook.

While the lower court considered the Bible reading harmless, it did still consider it an error. This is a different attitude than that of the first US Supreme Court Justice, John Jay, who also served as president of the American Bible Society. Jay said of the Bible:

"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts."

Bible Bus Starts Scripture Writing Tour

Zondervan is currently sending a blue RV to 40 different states as part of its effort to create a Bible in which every single one of the 31,173 verses is handwritten by a different person. This handwritten Bible will then be sent to the printing press to make it available to the general public by Christmas 2009. The Bible Across America tour commemorates the 30th anniversary of the New International Version (NIV) published by Zondervan and widely read by Christians across the country. The public is welcome to attend the Scripture writing events held at specific churches in 90 cities in order to get in line and maybe write one of the 500 verses allotted for that day.

Billy Graham, President Bush, and the current presidential candidates have also been invited to write scriptures, along with other celebrities. There will be an index listing who wrote which verse.

"Before the Gutenberg (the first Bible printed on a printing press), they were all handwritten," said Zondervan's Steve Sammons. "In our digital age, we lose sight of what it means to have a tangible product we create by our hands."

Regardless of whether one uses the NIV or not, there's an ownership that happens when 31,000 people work on a project like this. People who might never have read God’s Word otherwise will get copies for Christmas 2009, and will read the Bible because a friend of theirs handwrote one of the verses.

Bible Behind Bars

One of the greatest ways God's Word is being spread around today is in the prisons. Christian ministries like Prison Fellowship, Champions For Life, and Daughters of Destiny reach into dark places where people have been imprisoned by anger or drugs or shame long before they were imprisoned by bars. Prison ministries offer inmates the love and forgiveness of God, along with hope for a better future. Each addresses inmates' needs in different ways. The Library for Hope ministry ships thousands of Bibles and Christian books into prisons so that prisoners have Biblically-based reading material. After giving their lives to Christ, it is important that inmates also have good books to fill their minds. Working with fifty-five book publishers, Library of Hope has sent 55,000 books into prisons this year.

In God We Trust

Despite the disapproval of certain members of Congress, significant numbers of Americans still depend on God’s Word. Perhaps the Speaker of the House doesn't think Americans need to trust in God, but that doesn't mean they don't. As the culture wars continue, Americans need to make In God We Trust even more personal and persistent than simply words stamped in metal, or posted on the wall behind the Speaker's podium.

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you. – 1 Peter 1:24-25